


In the Moment

by palimpsestus



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The universe is infinite. But in every moment there is a power. A weapon to judge her wielder. Spoilers for the Day of the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers!

She has walked every street.

Even the ones that have not been built.

She has wept at every birth, and celebrated every death. She is mother to the microbes and son to the sapients, father of the favoured and daughter to the damned. She is the vastness of a universe that has looked into a single soul and she is as fathomless as love itself.

You do not comprehend it, my clever boy. Shall I whisper it to you? A story for you while you sleep. A lullabye I sing.

The universe is infinite. And a long time ago, somewhere not close to here, a child who is brave and clever and so, so in love, looks inside a beating heart.

The universe is infinite. And a long time away, somewhere so close, an old one who is bored and tired and so, so eager for adventure, calls out to a boy.

The universe is infinite. And in every moment, in every place, there is a power.

The child and the old one travel. Across time and space. They see every atom of existence. They are love and time, time and love, they write messages, they make a path, they place their signs.

They see something, someone, impossible. An impossible girl who runs.

They see a man who falls, a silence that rises, they see their own death, and they look away.

And such a thing is not unnoticed. It is a gambler who rolls the dice one too many times, who lands on green again, who holds the fifth ace in their hand . . .

Time is not a river. Time is not a ball of thread. Time is not a plane of paper or a moebius strip or a well or a pie or cog or game or a jar of sand that trickles . . . time is not ‘stuff’.

Love is time. Love. Love that feeds upon itself, unmeasurable, unknowable, and yet so familiar to us all. Love and Time fool everyone. Time Lord or human, cat or mouse, TARDIS or Moment.

When did she begin? When a TARDIS formed her first thought? When a weapon judged its wielder? When a man and a woman loved one another so very much . . .

The Moment reached out to the Wolf. And she looked at the boy she loved so very much, as he searched for her.

“It’s nothing. It’s just a wolf.”

Did they ever question why a weapon might judge her wielder? Did those Time Lords, so clever and old, ever think what might have breathed life into her?

Did they ever wonder why she was so broken? Did those Time Lords, so arrogant and wasteful, ever ask what would make a TARDIS just a little odd?

“Same software, different face.”

She remembers. How would you hide a planet? It is a question she hears in a junkyard, a whisper when a boy steals her. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when grounded. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when she is allowed to fly once more. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears while exploring for the longest time. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when summoned home. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when her timeline is tangled. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when her friend is confused. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when she is stolen. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when she is at war. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when her heart is exposed. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when she a paradox. How would you hide a planet? A question she hears when she a human.

I would hide it in a moment, she answers when she is so old.

That is when a weapon judges its wielder, when a TARDIS loses her mind, when a Wolf comes knocking at the door . . . when she crosses her own time stream thirteen times, and she has had an eternity to ponder it.

He thinks it’s his idea of course.

It was the loss of her people too.

The Moment is over. Like an alignment of stars, or the right twist of carbon that becomes a heartbeat.

The TARDIS returns to her own timelines, she forgets.

The Wolf finds herself in front of the man she loves and kisses him, she forgets.

The Moment watches those parts of herself. She lives the kiss again, because she likes it. And in fact she lives the other kisses again, and kisses she has never known, because she likes kissing and if that comes from the TARDIS or the Wolf or from the Moment herself what does it matter?

He thinks he never used the Moment.

The Moment knows better.

She returns to where it all begins.

The boy she loves turns away from the door, a frown on his face, his grey hair sticking up in sharp angles as though someone has lovingly ran her hand through it.

“It’s nothing. It’s just a wolf.”

The universe is infinite. And in every moment . . .

In _every_ moment.

There is love.  


End file.
